Summer's Over! What Holiday Fun now? Ice Hotels or Ice Wine?

Ice chapel in Ice hotel, Quebec, Canada. Photo by Chenslyuan in Wikipedia.

Problem
Yes, summer's over. I just missed the end of the Disney sand sculptures in Belgium, which ended Sunday 1st October. So what is going on in the winter months?

Answer
Now is the time to be thinking about Christmas and Spring, before everything gets booked up.

LONDON, ENGLAND, UK
In London in December there will be pantomime shows in theatres.

Restaurants will be offering Christmas lunches and dinner from December, with festive decorations, green Christmas trees hung with baubles, and red and gold Christmas crackers on the tables. For family and club and office parties, organisers buy gifts, Christmas cards, wrapping paper with bows, real of fake Christmas trees, decorations, Christmas crackers for tables.

Christmas crackers on sale in UK supermarkets. The price comes down after Christmas Day.

A red Christmas cracker.  Crackers usually contain a gift and / or hat, and a motto or joke.

A Christmas cracker with season decoration.

 Paper hats in assorted colours from Christmas crackers.

Christmas cracker photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

I can look for carols and carol singers under the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. I could enjoy concerts in churches.

Red Santas will be in their white grottoes welcoming children in the shopping malls. English pubs will be serving adults warming red mulled wine smelling of spices.

I shall never tire of hot turkey with thick gravy and roast potatoes, followed by a little dome of hot black Christmas pudding with warm yellow custard.

Everybody at meetings will be serving mince pies, sometimes cold, sometimes hot. At home we will eat mince pies warm, with hot custard.

I could go to Midnight mass on Christmas Eve, looking for advertisements in local newspapers.

Christmas tree with baubles in public buildings in London.

Christmas greetings and silver snowflake decorations in a Waitrose supermarket in London, UK.

Christmas pudding.

Christmas pudding served with hot custard.

Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

RUSSIA
If I don't want to partake of Christmas religious festivities I could take a trip to Russia and celebrate Grandfather Frost.

CHINA
Frost? Ice? Snow? From Dec 24 2017 to Feb 25, 2018, the city of Harbin in China holds the ice and snow festival with ice carvings. I have always wanted to go there.

SWEDEN
I could go to the Ice Hotel in Sweden. I have always wanted to go there. Only £1,154 for three nights including flights. I have plenty of choice. Ice hotels are built in Canada, Romania, Switzerland. You have to move out in March, when your hotel starts to melt!

No point booking the same room next year. Since they are starting all over again, they will probably do a different design.

How about an igloo?

LONDON, ENGLAND
Perhaps I shall settle for a cocktail in the Ice Bar in London. I have always wanted to go there.

New Year's Eve I expect to see the fireworks around the world on TV. I could drink ice wine.

New Year's Day if I am in London or Europe, picking up English TV,  I shall see the morning Concert from Vienna, Austria.

I shall be planning my year's travels.

ITALY - Carnevale (Carnival)
The Carnival in Venice, Italy, starts in January and ends in February. 2018 Carnival of Venice will begin on

Saturday

27 January 2018
and ends on

Tuesday

13 February 2018. (All dates are in United Kingdom Time.)

Watch the 2017 carnival on YouTUbe, with lots of boats moving towards the arched Rialto Bridge, to the sound of Italian music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q4NA5gJfIc (Venice carnival 2017)

A big carnival is held in the beach resort of Vareggio in Tuscany. (You can reach it by train from Pisa, Sienna and Florence.)

Other Cities  - also have carnivals.
A Carnival including a Battle of Oranges is held at Ivrea, Piedmont (Piedmont means foot of the mountain), Italy, Feb 10-13 2018. The word in Italian for events is e v e n t i. The letter i is Italian for plural. (I learned that from Duolingo.com . See my other posts on learning Italian.)

If you want to go south to the warmest spot, try Sicily which has a carnival with flowers.

SPAIN
I could go to Spain and enter the Christmas lottery, hoping to win the big prize El Gordo to fund umpteen trips. If I were in Spain in January I could see the three king's parade on their Christmas Eve on January 5th.

I shall go to sleep and dream.

More Information from:
UK
https://www.icebarlondon.com
www.visitlondon.com
www.visitbritain
AUSTRIA
https://www.austria.info/uk
BELGIUM
www.visitoostende.be
ITALY
www.visititaly.com
http://www.italia.it/en/travel-ideas/culture-and-entertainment/february-the-month-of-carnival.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q4NA5gJfIc (Venice carnival 2017.)
SPAIN
www.tourspain.org
RUSSIA
www.visitrussia.org.uk
ICE HOTELS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_hotel
CANADA - ICE HOTEL
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-s1-g155033-d184516-Reviews-Hotel_de_Glace-Quebec_City_Quebec
SWEDEN - ICE HOTEL
https://www.discover-the-world.co.uk/destinations/icehotel-holidays
ICE WINE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_wine

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
See and buy my books on Amazon.com and Lulu.com
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